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Topic: Rind is dimpling? (Read 809 times)

This cheese was made Oct 10, loosely following Jim Wallace's recipe for Hispanico using pasteurized cow milk, dry salted though, not brined. After a week of drying I washed the wheels twice with a mix of MVA, KL71, mycodor and mycoderm and have been aging the wheels on the pine boards. They have a really nice fruity aroma and pink coloring, I'm assuming from the KL71. White mold is just starting to take root. I'm perplexed what is causing the dimpling in the rinds, however, and if I should be concerned or doing anything about it. I have another five wheels aging with a different variety of molds, just what is natural in the cave, and they're not having this issue. A third group from this same batch is aging with a natural rind, getting washed with 3% brine each week and rubbed with olive oil, also no dimpling like this, so it doesn't seem like an issue with the make but rather something unique to that KL71/MVA/mycodore/mycoderm blend.

KL71 is a yeast, yes. It's what's giving you a fruity smell. It's used a pre-curser (de-acidifier) for moulds and yeasts (like Mycoderm and Mycodore). MVA is more of an "interior" working culture. Your mix uses all low key, surface prep and morgue cultures. You don't have a dominate culture, which is interesting because you have an obvious cornybacterium going on there.

Anyway, the dimpling is perfetly fine and expected in a cheese like this. There is nothing wrong, and nothing you should do differently.

Ah ok. I thought Mycodore is a dominate culture. There are other cheeses in the cave being washed with PLA, so I'm guessing that's where the cornybacterium is coming from. What process is going on that causes the dimpling? And now I'm wondering if there's another culture I should throw in the mix next time to keep the cornybacterium from taking over?